Disk drives typically include a spindle motor for rotating one or more disks in order to read data from and write data to surfaces of the disks. The spindle motor, an example of which is shown in FIG. 1A, includes motor base 1005 made up of a stator having a plurality stator teeth 310, which are wrapped with wire to form a plurality of coils 315, and a rotor having one or more rotor magnets 320 and a rotating hub 1000 coupled to the motor base on which the disks may be mounted and clamped. Different coils 315 of the stator are alternately energized to form a changing electromagnetic field that pulls/pushes the rotor magnets, thereby rotating the hub. Rotation of the hub, in turn, results in rotation of the disks mounted thereto.
In one type of current spindle motor designs, the motor base 1005, which includes the magnet 320 and back iron 325, is vertically spaced separated from the plane that the heads operate in. A hub 1000 is provided that supports the disk with the motor base 1005 being positioned below the hub 1000. The outer diameter of the motor base 1005 is sized to have the same outer diameter as of the hub 1000 having a disk mounting surface 1030 for supporting a disk (not shown).